> You say a PC purchaser spends 2 - 300 USD on a windows licence when
> its well known that bulk purchasing for system builders like dell
How much we pay (in)directly to Microsoft or Dell f.e will always be a mystery to us.
It's about deals and deals. If a manufacturer decides to install W by default, sure he will get a very good price from Microsoft.
> Comparing gimp to PS CS2 (the magic brush feature alone is a killer
> app) is not realistic to me..
That depends on what kinda of graphical artist you are. For me, editting and manipulating pics for the web, the Gimp does everything PS does. If you are a real DTP-er, probably you are using a Mac, and you will complain about the lack of CMYK in the Gimp, which is abracadabra and a non issue for me.
> So you never use any wintel box.. What mobile phone do you use ?? I
> dont know of a single GSM mobile or smartphone that will sync with
> linux..
I use a nokia, but only to call. I never thought about syncing it with my PC. My mobile is not important to me..but ..I'm planning to buy a PDA for my wife, and then .. yes ..we need some syncing. Jpilot does a excellent job in syncing Palms for example.
> digicam the other day.. Plug in via usb.. Device found, identified,
> driver auto installed and drive mounted without even touching the
> PC.. Try and get the pics off a digicam onto linux..
I do every day, it works splendid.
My script does this (code deleted)
I put my card in the cardreader (usb 2, multi-card reader)
$ getpicsfrom_dcam
# mount /dev/sda1 /dcam
# cp /dcam /hard-drive
# rename files, based on timestamp in header
# autorotate with jhead, based on header
# resize (optional)
# rsync them to another PC
# delete pics from card
Within 30 secs I have all my pics, renamed, rotated and resized in a time-of-the-day-directory, on two PC's. Resize (ImageMagick) needs some more time of course, we'll do that in the background, nice and easy.
Just bring me a camera, I will have the pics in no time on my pc.
> Linux on laptops is a very hit and miss affair.. Supported hardware
> and driverless systems that only partially work because there is
> often no true support system in free software is another large
> issue...
The support you get on Linux is the best available. No, no offical support, in a sense that you can call a desk somewhere with your questions (you can do that with some distro's). The Linux community IS your helpdesk. A very big, high skilled helpdesk, knowing almost very solution to every "problem". And WILLING to help, because of enthousiasme.
I buy you 10 beers for every piece of hardware on your PC that SuSE 9.3. doesn't recognize. You buy me a bottle of wine when SuSE recognizes everything.
> Also I work with video encoding a little.. WMVHD high definition
> DVD's are a killer app.. quite simply linux will not get this
> working.. Shame as studios are releasing hidef content right now (I
> have a media PC wired into my home theater)..
Could be, I don't know about that. Propably a closed proprietary format out of Redmond.
I did home video editting on W and now on Linux. MPlayer does all the encoding I need. It's a masterpiece.
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/
> Gaming..
I never play games myself anyway but I heard some stories.
I always say to people: "If you like gaming keep a partition with W. but only for your gaming".
> up for weeks at a time also without reboots.. The continual knocking
> of windows on stability front just feels odd to me when I hardly ever
> have a crash and when I do its app related rather than OS related..
There we go again. I heard this argument so often. My Windows machine is very stable, it nevers crashes, selldom has a "hang" or reboot .etc..
It could be all true. The only thing I know is that I worked with this software intensively during 8 years, 3.11, 95, 98SE, NT 4.0 and it was louzy. No improvement in 8 years what so ever.
And now some Windows users try to tell me that is HAS improved. That is nevers crashed, it's stable and even secure! Burg, try it! We had a great improvement the last years, since XP.
(I already feel miserable thinking my data is on a NTFS partition.. brrr..)
Agree, I never worked with XP in my life. I saw it 3 times in action in the last 2 years:
1. At my fathers home, XP. I had a CD with digicam pics from Thailand, installed ACDSee on his PC, viewed some pics, I was telling a story about one pic to my father, we laughed and we looked back at the screen, "Fatal exception etc.". I didn't even touch the thing.
2. Brother in Bangkok, XP laptop. We bought some mp3 CD's at Phantip and went back to the hotel to listen to them. What should have been The Beatles sounded like Engelbert Humperdinck. Very slow and low voices. "Scam!" my brother yelled, "let's go back to Phantip!"
Back home in Phuket we played the same CD on my Linux box. Lennon sounded as perfect as always.
3. Bought a external HD is Phuket, 3 reboots and one hang in 25 minutes.
I just don't believe it anymore. Solely based on my own experiences.
And the new "improved" Vista is going to be the same crap out of the same factory.
> Dont get me wrong.. I think linux is a good OS but I am OS agnostic,
> I use what feels right, while in the server side linux wins hands
> down for desktop use I dont find thats the case.
I think 95% of the people, the click dummies, would be far better of with a Linux machine.
Some special people will always stay with Windows ;-)
Excusez the long post.
Burg